A New York Experimental ensemble created by composer Christopher Bono, Nous was designed to remove ego and promote collaboration. The project has fluctuating group members, with each release featuring a different concept and centered around ritual and spontaneity. Recording sessions took place at Dreamland recording studio, where the participants took part in ritualistic meditation sessions, often with producer Kevin McMahon (Swans, Real Estate, Titus Andronicus) coming in afterwards to curate. Their first foray, 2018's NOUS I: A Musical Rite, featured Caleb Burhans, Greg Fox (Liturgy), Thor Harris (Swans), Shahzad Ismaily (Yoko Ono, Bonnie Prince Billy), and Greg McMurray (itsnotyouitsme); a mixture of meditation techniques and approaches to music were taken, relying on intuition rather than rigid structure. A side premutation called NOUS Alpha emerged, predominantly as a scaled-back collab between Bono and Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Can, Mogwai, Grizzly Bear), using the sounds of nature combined with electronic elements; they released Without Falsehood in 2018. NOUS II arrived the following year, with a greater emphasis on post-rock and ambient music, an approach which transferred to 2020's NOUS III. The following year saw another NOUS Alpha release, A Walk in the Woods, alongside another mainline NOUS album, Circle of Celebration, the latter of which heavily featured Laraaji and Arji OceAnanda. ~ Liam Martin, Rovi